Well I promised a thrilling ride yesterday and we sure got one!

We had a quick and wild drop right out of the gate, falling 75 points off Wednesday’s drop from 10,589 at 3pm.  But we rapidly gained it all back after holding our watch levels across the board, which was certainly technically bullish.  Our big mistake this year has been to ignore the technicals and worry about the fundamentals and we are very much on the wrong side of this trade if we do hold our breakouts into the weekend.  It’s all about the jobs report, of course – and we’ll get that news at 8:30. 

We are going to have to not worry and be happy about our breakouts should they come today.  I think it’s all a load of ridiculous crap and we had a long discussion this morning in Member chat about my fundamental concerns but the GS trade-bots don’t care what our fundamental concerns are, especially now that the heat is on Geithner and the great gifts he bestowed on GS et al through the AIG payments (following through on ex-Goldman CEO Paulson’s plans).   If the markets falter, the Congressional investigations begin again so everyone involved now has more of a vested interest than ever to keep these plates spinning no matter what the underlying fundamentals may be.

We’ll get a jobs number shortly but, as Mish points out, the government spent a record $14.7Bn on unemployment benefits in December, up 24% from November’s record $11.8Bn, “Yet the DOL has disclosed a mere 1.7% increase in those to whom insurance benefits are paid.”  Did we pay thos 200,000 newly unemployed people $7,350 a month each or is there some kind of nonsense going on with the statistics? 

As you can see from the chart, “emergency compensation” is flying, even as the standard-measured continuing claims numbers begin to slow down.  The black line on this chart illustraes what happens when you count what the government doesn’t – the emergency and extended unemployment benefits.  How long can we keep sweeping $14.7Bn a month under the rug while claiming to be in recovery?  Apparently, a long time!

IN PROGRESS